CVE-2023-34324 Possible deadlock in Linux kernel event handling

What is CVE-2023-34324?

CVE-2023-34324 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 5 Jan 2024. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Closing of an event channel in the Linux kernel can result in a deadlock. This happens when the close is being performed in parallel to an unrelated Xen console action and the handling of a Xen console interrupt in an unprivileged guest.

The closing of an event channel is e.g. triggered by removal of a paravirtual device on the other side. As this action will cause console messages to be issued on the other side quite often, the chance of triggering the deadlock is not neglectable.

Note that 32-bit Arm-guests are not affected, as the 32-bit Linux kernel on Arm doesn't use queued-RW-locks, which are required to trigger the issue (on Arm32 a waiting writer doesn't block further readers to get the lock).

Weakness: CWE-400

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-34324?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Linux kernel, Xen Xen.

How do I fix CVE-2023-34324?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2023-34324 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-34324 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-34324, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-34324, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-34324.